


Almanac

by Kyra



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Incest, Sibling Incest, Siblings, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-15
Updated: 2006-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-03 00:50:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/pseuds/Kyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time to plant tears. Time to take a wife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almanac

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2006 for seanarenay's incest challenge. Not explicit. With apologies to Elizabeth Bishop.

River's arm is thin as the branches on the top of the cherry tree that used to grow outside her window, on Osiris. Simon remembers how she used to slip out the window and climb to the very top, bare feet and swinging skirt, to read or throw rocks at his window while he tried to study.

Now, in her sleep, her arm is flung out across the sheets, and the skin on the inside of her elbow is pebbled with dark spots, marks from the needles he pushes into her on the bad days, on the good days. Sitting on the bed, Simon brushes his thumb lightly across them, down the inside of her arm to her wrist, and the lightly curled fingers of her hand. When he looks back he nearly jumps -- she's watching him through half open eyes.

"Simon?" she says, voice thick with sleep.

"Mei mei," he says. "You were crying. In your sleep."

She pulls her hand away from his to touch her face, the wetness on her cheeks.

"It was just a dream," he says, and she blinks up at him.

"Just a dream and they're still having it," she says, and then reaches up to touch his forehead, where he's frowning.

"Don't," she says, and he tries to stop. She works her hand up into his hair and tugs, pulls him to lie beside her. Tugs once again, sharply, even after his head is on the pillow.

"Brat," he says, and elbows her.

"Pansy," she says back, and pinches his leg with her toes.

Simon watches the ceiling for a little while, but soon his eyes end up closed and he's dozing, drifting, River's body warm beside him, her breathing matching his. When they were children she used to slip into his bed to sleep, or to wake him up in the middle of the night to ask him whether the other Core planets saw the same constellations they did, or to put his hand in warm water to see what would happen. He slept badly for a year after she went away to the Academy, and when he got her back he was -- afraid, so afraid for her, that she'd never be the same again, that he'd never be able to make her right. Now, instead, he's a little afraid of her. These things she can do with her body that she shouldn't be able to. River, bloody and wild-haired, the precision of her limbs and who knows what else they've hidden inside her, secrets and possibilities?

He's almost dreaming when River rolls over to lie on top of him, chest pressed to his, her toes skidding along his shins.

"Everyone's afraid," she whispers, close enough that her face must be right up next to his. "You're afraid of what this body does and I'm afraid of what your body says, all those words they gave you --" her voice catches, but only for a moment. "To break me. Breaking me, Simon."

Without opening his eyes he brings up a hand to rest on the small of her back. Rubs his thumb over the ridge of her spine. River sighs a little and pushes her face into the crook of his neck. He feels her legs slide apart, fall over the edges of his body on either side, straddling him just the tiniest bit. They are so close, so close.

River is talking again, singsonging almost too softly to hear, and he can almost pretend it's the kind of secret code she used to talk to herself back on Osiris, full of meaning only she could understand.

"Simon simon simon," she says. "Simon and the rivers. Simon and the roses. Time to plant tears. Time to take a wife." She rocks against him, almost imperceptibly, and he twitches, almost moves himself, has to let the weight of sleep and River hold him down, hold his hips to the bed, his thoughts to the back of his skull. His eyes are sticky with sleep, still closed, and River moves her face up so her lips are pressed against his cheek as she talks.

"They're afraid of the things that have names, and the things that don't have names," she says and the shift she sleeps in is so thin it's like the heat from her skin will set them both on fire. "They don't know that it's different in the black." Her lips are moving across his jaw, a snail leaving damp trails. "All the constellations disappear when you're inside them." She reaches down, brings his other hand to rest on her hip.

"You have to make up new names for them, Simon," she says against the corner of his mouth.


End file.
